Saturday Waffling (August 10th)

My God, work. This was a TARDIS Eruditorum week - still is, actually, as I've got one more post to write over the next two days. The stretch before this was the only all-Torchwood stretch, and was frankly grueling - entries that would finish at 1500 words and force me to look through them for space to pry open and fit more observations. (2000 words is less a preference for length and more a way of ensuring the density of coverage I like in given post.) Then back to revisions - I'm actually down to one on the Tom Baker book, and have now done two on the Hartnell book. I've unilaterally decided to alter the promised book, dumping Eoin Coilfer's A Big Hand for the Doctor out of a general complete lack of any interest in talking about a bad book and put in an essay on the most obvious and important book that I never talked about at any length. A hat tip to whichever commenter first identifies it.

These extra essays are frustrating. Part of it is that there's so many - a byproduct of the Kickstarter. Another part is that I have no commutes in my life, and so never have what I consider optimal time to listen to Big Finish stuff, and there's a lot of audios on the list. Going to have to just knuckle down and do that, which isn't punishment, but is still active reworking of my day. Plus many of them are just... hard in not entertaining ways. I've already decided book essays can make it to around 1500 because I just didn't have much to say. I don't want to just put in book reviews of random out of print 90s novels, and finding things to say about the period the book is about is often difficult. I regularly muse on the fact that if this essay had been a good idea, I'd have written it the first time through.

I'm quite liking the commissions, particularly the ones that pick Pop Between Realities stuff. I think I may go more in that direction starting with the Graham Williams book, leaning away from novels and audios and towards Pop Between Realities stuff and, perhaps, more commissions. I rather like commissions as a concept, and have been finding them very fun.

I had been hoping to plow through all my co-books on StoryBundle so I could talk about them this weekend. In one of those pleasant complications, however, right when I was set to start that a review copy of something else hit my inbox, and that something else was a book I've been looking forward to for a very long time. I'll run a very big review in a week and change. Spoiler: there's a gas mask on the cover.

One thing that's obvious about the Storybundle deal is that these are very different types of books. That's fairly clear with the juxtaposition of my stuff with Dining With The Doctor. I mean, it's a Doctor Who cookbook, which, for a fair portion of my audience, already brings a wry smile and a Gary Downie joke. There's not a lot of inherent similarity between it and a postmodernist episode guide.

Beyond that, it's not my style, really. I mean, it looks like a fine cookbook. I didn't go and make any of the recipes, but, you know, they sound good and have sane ingredients. A lot of snacks, a few meals. Usually silly. "Bow Tie Pasta with Protesting Star Whale Brains" indeed. The writing style is light and jokey, clearly belonging to the new series fandom that simply doesn't interact with the old cult approach. The sort of book that refers to "the Silents." There's a degree of "here's how I came up with a recipe for every new series episode up through The Doctor, The Widow, and the Wardrobe. Plus there's an appendix on fish fingers and custard.

I'm a reasonably decent home chef, so evaluating the recipes as food... they're often very simple, throw-together things. Celebrations of the "craft" element of food and things that might be fun with kids are common, though there's certainly some complex recipes here and there. (Vampire Space Fish has sixteen ingredients and uses puff pastry.) It's certainly not all for kids - several cocktails are offered. But so are hot dogs and cheese shoved in crescent rolls (The Doctor's Hand, as it happens). Nothing I glanced at was making me run to the kitchen, but I have about five cookbooks I ever touch, and most of the time when I'm cooking it's either an old standard I've made for years or my wife and I playing a game of "she picks a bottle of wine and I go to the supermarket and make a meal that pairs with it."

In any case, Dining With the Doctor gives every appearance of being a good book of the sort it is, which is clearly a book I have as much understanding of as I imagine its audience does when confronted with the spectacle of me describing walking around London as a means of discussing a 1960s Cybermen episode for reasons apparently having to do with Marxism. Clearly it's a sensible book - BBC America has published cute recipes like this, so there are people who like this sort of stuff, and this is clearly a pretty good incarnation of this sort of stuff. If you are one of those people, well, there you go.Dalek I Loved You is altogether easier to get a handle on. It's a classic example of the "personal memoir through the lens of" genre, largely in the Nick Hornby tradition. It's funny, it's well-written, if you like Toby Hadoke's Moths Ate My Doctor Who Scarf and stuff like that, it's right up your alley. My talking less about it is not, to be clear, me disliking it. It's a lovely book - it's just also one I find it easy to describe. Fever Pitch for Doctor Who. Simple enough. Whereas a Doctor Who cookbook apparently requires more explanation.

In any case, that's half of the Storybundle books, and I suppose I'll natter about the other half next Saturday as one last attempt to encourage you to go buy it, as it's a lovely deal and, you know, supports me and a bunch of other indie authors. (And, apparently, the Barry Letts estate.) It's a cool mixture of books.

Which brings us to our weekend topic: Doctor Who nonfiction. Obviously there's a huge range of it, including critical stuff, anorak compendiums, histories, and things that are very, very, silly.What are some of your favorites? Sucking up does not win you brownie points - the fact that you're here suggests you like TARDIS Eruditorum. What else? And why?

Comments

To be honest, other than one readthrough of the Discontinuity Guide about 15 years go, I've only read blogs. Other than here, I quite enjoyed Wife In Space and Mark Watches (which covers many different shows, but Doctor Who is one of the ones I read).

Also, that cookbook sounds interesting. There is apparently some overlap in the markets for that and TARDIS Eruditorum.

My brother-in-law spent a month experimenting with different custards until he made one that went well with fish fingers. It was a very lightly sweetened lemon custard IIRC.

The Making Of Doctor Who in the mid 70s. I didn't get the first edition, which was about the Pertwee era; the version I got was in the early Tom Baker years. It listed all the stories up to Seeds of Doom, and I think all the companions, including the UNIT lot. It went into great detail about how a DW story was made, from start to finish (the example was Robot). A great book to introduce kids to the history and production of DW, and also a great example of how to do 'The Making Of ...' in general

I'm not sure how I'd take to listening to the Big Finish audios without being in the middle of something. I usually listen to them at work when I can keep a decent amount of my attention on them.

Of late, I've taken to listening to them twice within a short period of time as the more complex (or muddled) narratives become quite clear on the second go around. Not required for a straight-ahead narrative like "The Marian Conspiracy" where everything is exactly as it seems, but I find it helps immeasurably with a plot that involves any sort of double-dealing or people being forced to act out of character... or because the writer didn't realize a crucial scene isn't well suited to audio.

But if I couldn't listen to them at work or on the commute to work, I'm not sure when I would bother to find the time.

I haven't read Doctor Who non-fiction in years aside from TARDIS Eruditorum (suck-up alert!), but I do have fond memories of Gary Gillatt's Doctor Who: From A-Z (which ISN'T an encyclopaedia of monsters or anything like that).

On topic: The two non-fiction Who books on my bookshelf are The Writer's Tale: The Final Chapter and The Unfolding Text*. The first is compulsory reading, while the latter is a bit of a slog (though you can get something out of it if you skip to the parts which quote an interview with someone behind-the-scenes).

I listen to Big Finish audios a lot when walking the dog, cooking and washing up, occasionally when doing my exercises. Even though I no longer commute that adds up to quite a chunk of my time, so they are my main form of Who.

Almost the only time I listen to them without doing something else is when the children have been listening too, and want to get to the end. If I am writing a review I may relisten to sections with pen and paper in hand; but mostly jotting down the occasional aide memoire is enough.

It's interesting; I am very comfortable listening to the audios and find recons a terrible slog, whereas for other people it's the reverse. To be honest if I had to choose between losing the TV or the audios for the fifth, sixth and eighth Doctors, I would choose to keep the audios. (It's borderline with the seventh.)

I adored the Radio Times 10th Anniversary magazine as a child. When I was getting back into Who in 2006-2007 I made much use of Mark Campbell's guide to find out what was out there and decide what to get (until I realised my taste was completely different to his). I'd also scan my son's copy of Jean-Marc L'Officier's Programme Guide for info. Now most of it's in my head, or discarded in favour of my own opinion. I've also scanned some stuff that came as DVD extras, though not read any of it cover to cover. The same goes for the You and Who series - we've got the first three volumes because me and my children each have an essay in one of the books, but I've probably read about a quarter of the other entries.

One borderline non-fiction book I've read a lot is Lance Parkin's AHistory 2.0. Most of it is in-universe stuff, but hey, it's got footnotes!

I'm interested in Running Through Corridors and the About Time series, but haven't forked out for them yet. I will read the storybundle books eventually, but so far have only scanned a few of the recipes.

So the only wholly non-fiction, non-programme-guide-type books I've read thoroughly are the Eruditorum books. Sorry.

Discontinuity is my most dog-eared. Completely Useless Encyclopedia was a joy when it was first out, though now a lot of the jokes seem repetitive and superficial, though there are still gems I bring to mind ever now and again. Licence Denied was important in bringing fan crit to a more general audience. A lot of it is nothing special by today's standards, but it is a fascinating snapshot of old-school fan attitudes.

One to avoid is "Science Fiction Audiences" - the Trek half is interesting to this non-Trekster and very sharply dissects Rodenberry's smug faux liberalism. The Doctor Who half is a mess of garbled ideas that never quite form an argument, which is a crying shame because the basis of it has a lot of potential.

I remember enjoying the Discontinuity Guide, though I haven't looked at it in years. I listen to some Big Finish but they are rather hit and miss for me. I avoid the CD Extras as the are full of lovies patting each other on the back, which comes across as unbearably smug when the story isn't actually that good.

I can't remember if you wrote at any length about Whittaker's 'Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure with the Daleks' if not is that thebook you've added to the Hartnell revisions? I hope so. It's an intriguingly different take on the opening episode. I've often wondered why he decided to replace Totters Lane with a foggy night on Barnes Common.

With me, there's so much competition for the TV screen, I can never find the time to rewatch the recons. I do listen to the narrated soundtracks from time to time because I have plenty of time to listen to stuff.

I'm with Froborr - I think there is somewhat of an audience crossover between these books, because when I read there was a Doctor Who cookbook, I said, "Oooh!" My husband is a professional chef and I like cooking, so I like getting fun/unique cookbooks. However, your description was quite helpful because I actually don't think I'll buy it now (unless as part of the larger bundle). Those recipes seem a little too juvenile for me - more Marvel cookbook for kids (terrible but hilarious) and less The Hunger Games Cookbook (wild game!).

As for fan memoirs, one of the best I've read is Freddie and Me, a graphic novel about the author's love of the band Queen. I picked it up at SPX, the indie comics convention, and it was definitely worth it.

To be honest, I lost interest in the cookbook as soon as it became clear it was "recipes with a vague visual connection to Doctor Who" not "recipes from Doctor Who" (because there aren't any, except fish fingers and custard). I like my novelty tie-in cookbooks to have a stronger connection to the source material than that. (My favourite is Nanny Ogg's Cookbook, with which I've got quite skilled at making dwarf bread, jammy devils and Wow-Wow Sauce, but I still have fond memories of being a kid and making Jeremy Fisher's Butterfly Sandwiches from the Peter Rabbit Cookbook).

Back on topic, my most consulted DW non-fiction book is probably AHistory, because I like pretending it all fits together, even though I know it doesn't and shouldn't have to. And I get the impression Parkin knows that as well, but he likes pretending too.

Err... Have you considered pointing your brother in law towards the outdoors?Or buying him a pet? Or introducing him to the concept of girls?

I own the 6 About Time books, and AHistory, and the 3 Euriditorums...Oh, and A Writers Tale, and An Unfolding Text, and The Making of DrWho...Oh, and A Key to Time, And A Celebration, and Timeframe, and The Seventies...Oh, and William Shatner's Star Trek: Movie Memories...

Holy c***, I've just realised that that is about £250 worth of DrWho reference books...

But aside from that, where there are still so many episodes I haven't read just for lack of time and attention span, the first nonfiction guides I bought were the two-part Programme Guide. Many years later I happily purchased the three-volume set, and then a few years ago I suggested to Lofficier that he offer them in Kindle [although now I'd want Nook] editions. He said that there were so many websites with the same information that there would be little interest.

...and last year, when I complained about the many formatting and spelling issues in the Kindle edition of the Programme Guide, he was astonished. He didn't know that the publisher was selling it as an ebook.

I completed my set of The Handbook just so that I'd have the set to sit on the shelf. Sadly I'd lost interest as it continued.

The MOST eye-opening book, though, was Lance Parkin's A History of the Universe! FANTASTIC it was! Not only was it a timeline, but it was heavily footnoted with his sources and thought process!

...its only drawbacks being that the page format had some footnotes pages away from their references, and that by the eightieth Cyber-computer entry it got old. Aside from that, the primary documents -- journal entries and such -- were magnificent and sorely missed in the next edition.

I own all three editions of AHISTORY, and actually two copies of the third edition: the first copy got mangled. Otherwise I'd buy the Nook edition, just to have the references as hot links.

There are only two personal flaws with AHISTORY. First is the fact that the shortest footnotes don't include the medium (the universe has grown so vast, I have NO IDEA whether "Imperial Moon" is an audio, novel (which range?), comic strip, or some other form, and I would like to know that without having to look it up. Second that it's grown so HUGE that I'm overwhelmed -- hence the wistful longing for a less expensive etext, and the wish for more complete footnotes.

My only wish would be to own the fanzine edition of Parkin's history. But the few times it's shown up on eBay I've had to laugh. I'd like to have it, but not enough to outweigh the Nook version of its fifth edition.

(Apologies that I didn't preview first. One parenthetical got lost, and at the start I jumped without warning from About Time to Lofficier's work.)

To summarize, ABOUT TIME and AHISTORY are the ones I've enjoyed and appreciate the most. (The copy of AHISTORY that I replaced got mangled in my classroom at school. Ah well.)

I'd actually take David J. Howe's *gorgeous* Timeframe to school, just so it could be enjoyed by the many despite potential mishandling, but for the picture of Katy Manning fondling (actually embracing) a Dalek. I'd be shot for bringing that picture to school.

More to the point, it's a major work by David Whitaker that I've never said a word about. Now I just need to figure out where to work in his bizarre yet fascinating prologue to Doctor Who and the Crusaders...

If Regeneration is the book I'm thinking of, I've read both. Regeneration has a lot more detail - The Nth Doctor was basically Lofficier writing an unauthorized book cribbed from things he got from Segal by worming his way in as a "fan advisor," Ian Levine style, at least in Segal's telling. From Segal's description, this consisted of him getting sent scripts and documents, him running off and writing an unauthorized book about it, and little else.

Reading the book, this is believable - Lofficier's book is written like someone who's afraid of a lawsuit if he quotes too much. Regeneration's authorized status means that whole swaths of the Leekley Bible get reprinted, and we get much more of a feel of what the McGann movie saved us from.

I quite like Outside In: 160 New Perspectives... edited by Robert Smith? and which includes my favorite Sandifer essay. It's all Classic Who material (a second volume on the Revival is on its way) and it's stunning how many different takes people have on the show. Some readings are redemptive, some critical, and some plainly bonkers -- though in a delightfully creative way.

I wish Chicks Dig Time Lords was more oriented to meta and analysis of the show, but it's a fine entry that deserves to be on every Who fan's bookshelf.

Obviously, for reference, The Handbook.For enjoyable reading, Miles & Wood, Shearman & Hadoke, and especially Andrew Rilstone's writing (which got me back into Doctor Who about thirteen years ago).AHistory for the sheer unbridled lunacy of the thing.

Unfortunately the main reference books that interest me (The Sixties/Seventies/Eighties, etc) are out of print...I have The Brilliant Book 2012 which is fun and actually has some interesting stuff (like how many drafts "The Curse of the Black Spot" went through), and I have the revived series guide (up to 2011) Who is the Doctor by Graeme Burk and Robert Smith? which is an interesting read as well, giving me positive perspectives on stories I didn't think much about and more critical perspectives on stories I like. It's the basis for my claim that there's a good and bad to almost every Doctor Who story. I also have Doctor Who and Philosophy, which I'll have to look back at again now that I'm more familiar with the classic series, but I still feel like it's already outdated (was published in 2010) because the chapters on time travel and the Weeping Angels would be improved by the Moffat era. I also like the Inside the TARDIS book by James Chapman (mostly available on Google Books) for some general insights into the evolution of the series. And then there is, you know, this blog.

As for other Doctor Who nonfiction works, I unfortunately have to admit I never really read much of them, certainly not compared with my library of Star Trek nonfiction works, so I wouldn't know what to begin to recommend.

I did read a lot of Starlog magazine though, and they frequently had articles on the Classic Series. That was one of the first places that introduced me to it, actually.

Oh my Crusaders, there is so much to write about. The explanation of why only Earth's history is immutable. The languid sensuality of the intro. The Ian\Barbara shipping (the story consists of a spoonerish Doctor\Vicki panto gift-wrapping Ian\Barbara slash fiction as it might have been written by Sir Walter Scott, only without his inbuilt non-Englishness).

And then there's the kitchen-sink opening to Exciting Adventure, the unfortunately explicit equivalence of good looks and good character, the way the whole story is written as an Ian\Barbara love story with occasional Daleks, and, of course, the bizarre Marc Bolan tribute which, as I have said before, resolves UNIT dating to my entire satisfaction.

When it came out, the original two volume Episode Guide was a quantum leap (in the sense of something vast, not tiny) from The Making of Doctor Who.

I also loved The Early Years, the same format as Doctor Who: A Celebration and The Key to Time for the twentieth and twenty first years respectively, but so much more dark and mysterious. Also great on Raymond Cusick. These books had a lot of emphasis on visuals and Early Years delivered on that.

I'm not sure I count as a real fan being one of these people who left it behind at a certain point, and coming back you see curious changes in fandom, such as referring to whole stories as "episodes". (Yes, that's a minor example.) But from different tangents Wife in Space and Eruditorum have helped re-ignite my love of the show. That and the fact it revived of course.

There's one, maybe two more from Image of the Fendahl: the Doctor's fruit cake recipe (peanuts mixed with treacle and apple cores - bake for two weeks) and perhaps Martha Tyler's fruit cake recipe too, if she goes into any detail after waking from her coma and declaring "Here. Just a minute. That's ain't the way to make a fruitcake."

I think I currently own 8 Doctor Who nonfiction books, the 3 previously released TE volumes and the storybundle batch. By the way, Philip apparently is engaged in an experiment to see how many times I'll buy the Troughton volume. It's currently at 3- ebook, print via the Kickstarter, and now an extra ebook via storybundle. I assume this is a parallel to the BBC's efforts to see how many times they can sell us the episodes in various forms. (They have yet to get me to buy anything more than twice, which puts Phil in the lead there. Although Underwater Menace 3 may break that record if they release it with 2, since I've got both Lost in Time and the audio.)

Nonfiction sources that I use online, however, include the BBC website (which has extensive quotes from the Discontinuity Guide and Doctor Who, the Television Companion), Wikipedia (if there's less than a million words on Doctor Who there I'll be surprised), and Shannon Sullivan's A Brief History of Time (Travel).

Oh no - according to the book there were 9 drafts of it. It was originally about Amy wanting to go to Cornwall on a holiday, but they arrived 300 years too early and pirates were looting the streets and they ran into Avery who was looking for his wife, who had been stolen by some monster. There was nothing on the water whatsoever.

Agreed that the Lofficier books were invaluable references in the days before the WWW. Unfolding Text... well, was a slog in all the worst traditions of dull dry academic writing, and chock-full of the kind of 'biased reading into the text' writing I hate.

The Peter Haining books, while very light and breezy and (in the later books) focusing too much on fandom than on the show itself, were better than nothing until I found the Lofficier books.

About Time and the Discontinuity Guide... a mix of interesting/thought-provoking reviews, and (especially in About Time) rather mad excursions off the reservation. Very much worth having, but not necessarily worth trusting.

When the show is on, he posts his thoughts on each episode on Twitter, and before the announcement of Peter Capaldi, Alton was one of the many celebrities half-jokingly suggesting that they should be the next Doctor.

This isn't especially relevant this moment, but I was wondering, by any chance have you done any discussion of Peter Davison's show during the wilderness years? You know, the one that banked the entire chances of success on the fact that that the audience would recognize him as the Doctor?

I'm referring, of course, to The Last Detective. I'm kind of interested what your take on it would be, and if you've watched and come to some of the same conclusions I have about it.